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Capitals Re-Sign Burakovsky, But Where do they go from Here?

July 5, 2017, 11:43 AM ET [19 Comments]
James Tanner
Washington Capitals Blogger • RSSArchiveCONTACT


Being an NHL GM must be an insane job.

Every thing you do gets dissected and criticized, there are about a 1000 people at any given time hoping to take your job, and there's only 31 of them, so mathematically, you're easily replaceable. Your job depends on predicting the development of 18-30 humans who all have physical, psychological and personal issues, and to top it off, you can be extremely successful and have nothing to show for it.

Despite deserving some - if not all - of the criticism thrown their way, George McPhee and Brian MacLellan have had a team that has been competitive for a decade, and been the best team in hockey over the last two or three years. Now, some of that is lucking into Ovechkin and Backstrom at the top of the draft, but there is no doubt the real success of this team is obscured by the playoff failures.

Bad playoff luck destroyed them. Yeah, yeah, it's not all luck.......I now what you'll say, but the NHL's real Stanley Cup Final seems to happen in the second round every year when Washington plays Pittsburgh. You can say whatever you want about the Capitals being chokers, but they thoroughly dominated the Penguins in terms of scoring chances, shot attempts and overall play. That is just how hockey goes, and we know that, but we don't afford the architects of those "unlucky" teams any more rope than we do the guys who run the worst clubs.



You can't say Nashville or Ottawa built better teams just because they went farther - if you're not accounting for the randomness of sports, you're not honestly assessing anything. Whatever. I don't want to argue about who deserves what, only to point out that if you're the GM, you can do the best job possible and there's a 30 out of 31 chance that you'll fail.

And, yes, the Capitals still have a window where they could presumably win (if everything goes right) but there is almost no way they're icing a team as good as the one they did for the last two years.

Two Straight President's Trophies, and the MacLellan gets called one of the worst GMs in hockey. It's a tough business.

I feel bad for MacLellan, he had no choice but to go for it last year, and he's a bit hamstrung this year.

Not only does he have to deal with the aforementioned problems of being an NHL general manager, but he has to try and satisfy an owner and a fan base - neither of which is capable of making the nuanced and highly informed decisions that an NHL GM has to make to be successful.

Even still, there is no excuse for giving away Marcus Johansson - to a division rival, no less. And both Oshie and Kuznetsov got extremely overpaid. There is no way around the fact that they could have kept Johansson and Schmidt + traded Kuznetsov for an NHL ready player on an entry-level deal (essentially no cap hit) and still had money left over.

You can build the best team in the league, but make one little mistake and the vultures - essentially guys like me with big mouths, platforms, nothing to lose and no idea what it actually takes to do their job - will be screaming for your head.

Seems unfair, but that is why you make the big bucks. I get called names for pennies on the dollar compared to MacLellan, so I can't feel that bad.

And just when you're starting to feel some empathy for the GM, you go and read a quote from the guy that says he "never even considered" buying out Brooks Orpik.........I really don't think you need to have played in the NHL before to make such a bad decision.

That is the problem with most NHL GMs - they have their jobs due to their ties in the game, but most of them clearly are not educated in things like game theory, risk/reward analysis, data analysis, negotiations, or critical thinking.



Obviously knowing the league is a prerequisite for running a hockey team, but when you look at how nearly every single GM in the league routinely makes decisions that are questionable, perhaps a smart owner would gain a huge advantage by looking outside the current stable of established NHL executives when hiring in the future.

Despite all that, let us highlight one good move made by MacLellan: Signing Andre Burakovsky to a two-year $3 million cap-hit deal. Ideally you'd like to lock him up a bit longer, but it's a good value deal and Burakovsky is a useful player.

Not as good, or as useful as Marcus Johansson (who only costs $1.5 more) but at least Burakovsky is retained.

The Team clearly should have traded Kuznetsov, but what can you do? Next season the Capitals are still going to have a very good team. They won't have a team as good as the one that lost this year in the Playoffs, but they'll still have a team that is better than most of the others in the Eastern Conference.

A Playoff spot remains all but assured, and teams can and do get lucky once they are in. I wouldn't be surprised if the lesser Capitals ironically went farther than the superior version. That's the way the NHL seems to work.

There is a reason you can't run out a stacked team like the Caps did last year on a regular basis, and now they will have to go forward the best they can. MacLellan didn't do the team any favors, but there is still reason for fans to look forward to continued success.
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